The conduct of timely and high-quality research aimed at the elimination of health disparities is the major goal of this competing renewal of our center grant. While much of the effort of the previous center grant involved development of research infrastructure and relationship-building for enhanced health disparities research at. UNC and Shaw universities, we are now ready to build on that foundation through the conduct of multiple, concurrent independent projects. These projects will focus on intervention studies and studies of root causes of disparities that will directly lead to future interventions in communities where disparities in health exist. The conduct of multiple simultaneous projects does add to the administrative aspects of the overall center grant, but we are confident that both universities in the partnership have more-than-adequate capacity to manage these awards efficiently. The three faculty administering the Research Core possess extensive experience in the conduct and administration of NIH and other awards. This section will provide an overview of the individual large and pilot research projects. The majority of our effort within the center grant will be dedicated to the conduct and support of the independent research projects. We plan on continuing to fund a modest number of pilot projects within the center in order to generate the next cycle of innovative research to advance our goal of the eventual elimination of health disparities related to race and ethnicity.